


Standing is Tricky when the Ground is Shaking

by Rynfinity



Series: The March of the Damned [23]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Human, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Sibling Incest, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-03 21:49:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2889140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynfinity/pseuds/Rynfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Was it easier for you when Thor didn't remember," Dr. Riley asks him.</p><p>"No.  I like it that he remembers.  I don't even mind being Mr. 12-Step Expert," he admits, because it actually is kind of nice to feel useful for a change.  "I just wish he would do it during the evening, maybe."</p><p> </p><p>This is a direct sequel to <i>Oddly Enough, There’s Plenty of Dung at the Bottom of the Dung Heap</i> and will make the most sense read after its predecessors. </p><p>This story takes place in the same AU and timeframe as <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2368712/chapters/5230706">Tectonics </a> from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/104813">Out of the Mouths of Babes</a>; unlike the Babes stories, this one is told from Loki's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Loki (yet again, yes) has a lot going on inside that he chooses not to let Thor see.

Loki pulls the tall, soft neck of his plushy black turtleneck up over his mouth and nose until his eyes hover just above the rim. He sits there like that, watching Dr. Riley patiently watch him back, until the microcosmic universe inside his sweater gets too hot and humid to stand. It's a cute look - he's done it in front of one mirror or another for long enough that he knows this for certain - and he fully intends to milk it for all he can. "This is my place to be selfish and rotten, right," he confirms once his (hot, dampish) turtleneck is back where it officially belongs. He looks down at his own hands and back up, slowly… anywhere else it would read as flirting but, here, she just laughs.

"Of course," Dr. Riley assures him. "And I must confess I'm eager to hear whatever has you going to such lengths to reclaim- well, any advantage."

"I'm a dick," Loki admits. This time when he looks away it sticks. "My brother is going through this big existential crisis and all I can think is _jesus fuck, can you stop already so I can finally get a decent night's sleep?!_ " He doesn't have to fake any of this part; it hurts just to think it. Sometimes being angry with Thor is a hell of a lot easier, at least in comparison to the alternatives.

"The dreams, you mean," she asks.

He nods. "Yeah... ever since Odin's Grand And Disturbing Absolution Letter I don't think he’s slept through the night. And then I have to be all strong and dependable while he panics... until he drifts back off to la-la land and I lie there totally fucked. And not in a good way," he adds, smirking at the floor.

"Was it easier for you when Thor didn't remember," Dr. Riley asks him. Loki sighs. He looks at her again.

"No. I like it that he remembers. I don't even mind being Mr. 12-Step Expert," he admits, because it actually is kind of nice to feel useful for a change. He sighs again and slumps back in his chair, letting his ass slide forwards until he’s kind of flat on the seat cushion with only his head still propped up. "I just wish he would do it during the evening, maybe. Weekends," he quips, "he can have all day. Because I’m easy."

"This really is all very interesting," Dr. Riley tells him, her tone of voice so bright that he automatically looks away again (up to the ceiling, this time; in this position it's pretty much the only option… and it’s not particularly comfortable), "but I think you still haven't answered my original question."

He sighs again. The sweater slides nicely against his stomach. He sighs two or three more times just to feel it. "I know," he admits, finally.

She laughs. "Oh, yes, I figured you did."

"I liked to fuck with my brother's head about how I didn't know I was adopted," Loki tells her. His heart is hammering uncomfortably in his throat; he wants to pull his turtleneck back up over his head and disappear. "To make him pay for not telling me, I guess? I’m actually not even sure why."

He's been thinking about this pretty much non-stop since Thor's first dream. _That_ dream; the one from which his brother had awakened screaming, profoundly panicked about being abandoned, because-.

"-I slipped," he admits. "I confirmed something was real, and in so doing I let on that I wasn't as blind to the whole thing as I've always pretended." He gives in to gravity’s relentless pull and allows himself to slip down the front of the chair until he's sitting on the floor in front of it with knees up and arms limp at his sides. "And he's no fool. It's only a matter of time before he catches on to what I said. What I did."

"Speaking of did, when _did_ you find out," Dr. Riley asks. She doesn’t sound angry, or disgusted..

Loki shrugs. "Officially? Not until around the time of my first serious suicide attempt," he acknowledges, "which is what I always tell Thor. But I had a _lot_ of hints before that. As far back as I can remember." He smiles, nastily this time. This stuff always makes him nasty. "Pretty much any time Odin was drunk. So, depending on the week, nightly."

He half expects that to distract her. It doesn’t. "Hints," she prompts. "Such as?"

Now that he's gotten started, Loki can't make himself stop. "Hints," he confirms, looking directly at her this time. "He was always listing off the reasons my parents left me – for Thor, I mean - to scare my brother into behaving. If we were alone, he used to tell me I was what drugs caused. Shit like that. Once he told me he found me in the garbage. The best was the time he told me I'd come out of the plumbing with the rest of a toilet clog.” Her eyebrows do finally shoot up with that one.

“Oh, oh," he goes on, a little too warmed to his subject now, "and then there was the time he told a whole bunch of grown-up company, right in front of me, that he’d brought me home from the pound. He even dug a little red leather collar out of his desk and waved it around to prove it." If he closes his eyes Loki can still hear the tags jingle. "Mo- Frigga banished Odin to his study that time, and sent me straight to bed. When she came up to comfort me, I suppose after she'd dealt with the houseful guests, I pretended to be asleep. I wasn't having any of it, not half an hour later."

Dr. Riley chews her lip for a moment or two. "How old were you when this was going on?" If anything she looks sad, which is- deflating. He has to look away again.

"I was five when that happened," he says. "The first I remember, I was maybe three? And it kept on happening pretty much until Thor started playing football for real." He shrugs again. "Maybe by then Odin was afraid to taunt him? I dunno." At the time he'd thought his brother had finally achieved some semblance of perfection; now, he's much less certain.

"And what about the times he was sober," she asks quietly. "What did he tell you then?"

"He told me not to lie, not to say things like that. _Just because you wish you weren't my son, you little ingrate, doesn't mean you get to go around spreading filth_ ," Loki apes. "And Frigga always simply said _of course you are our son_ , which I suppose could pretty much mean anything."

"I think there’s more here than you’re taking into consideration," Dr. Riley tells him. He frowns at his own kneecap. "Do you remember how you felt when you were officially told?"

He lets his head flop back onto the chair seat. "Like all my worst dreams had just come true," he admits. "Which I guess is stupid, considering. But then I felt relieved. I finally knew for sure I wasn't _flesh of that flesh or blood of that blood_. And then of course I went off on my own and fucked up royally," he goes on, half laughing and half crying. "So I guess all that _not being Odin’s_ got me pretty much nowhere." He slides all the way down and curls into a ball on the floor, hands tucked inside the long, soft sleeves of his sweater.

The laugh-crying? It's all crying, now.

Loki coughs. "Fucked if I do, fucked if I don't, y'know?"

"I'm going to tell you two things," Dr. Riley warns him, sliding out of her own chair to join him on the floor with some quiet rattling and a soft thump. "And your homework, for however long you need, is to think about them."

He snuffles loudly and then nods, from where he knows he's half-hidden behind his own wooly hands.

"First,” she starts, “the easier one: While it's good of you to be kind to Thor while he's coming to terms with this - and I'm proud of you for trying! - it isn't your job to fix any of it for him." She reaches out and touches his boot, just up on the ankle where the leather is soft and thin. Her hand is warm. Comforting. "If his stuff is too much for you, I'll talk to Ginny. We can get him the help he needs, even if he doesn't know how to find it himself. Just think about it," she reminds him, tightening her warm grip on his ankle briefly.

Loki opens and closes his mouth a few times, feeling altogether too much like his brother as he does so. "Okay," he manages eventually. "Next?" He curls into an even tighter ball, frightened despite the way her hand on his leg feels solid and grounding. "Let’s just get it over with," he pleads. "Tell me."

"Loki, Loki," she says sadly. "It's nothing awful. It’s only this; I think you are judging your child self too harshly," she tells him. "Assuming your memory is even partially correct," she goes on, which is a nicer way of saying she knows he could be lying, "it sounds to me as though you were given a lot of mixed messages. Some of them were cruel and punitive; even the nice ones, though, tended towards contradictory. When you look at the whole thing as an adult," - and that's nice; he doesn't get called _that_ very often - "you have a degree of perspective you couldn’t possibly have had as a child."

Loki snuffles again. The floor beneath his face is getting unpleasantly soggy. "Meaning what, exactly?"

"Meaning," she says, "that what grown-up Loki terms _fucking with his brother's head_ was simply child Loki repeating what he believed to be true. Or, barring that, saying what he hoped might keep him alive. Either way," she sums up with another ankle-squeeze, "I don't think we can fairly blame him. He was just a little kid, after all."

"Can I have a tissue," Loki asks after a very, very long silence broken only by his wet breaths. "Before I warp the goddamned floor?"

"We'll get you through this," she tells him, pushing the box against his wrist. “Honest. Here you go. Wipe your nose."

 _That much_ , at least, he thinks he can handle.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes friends can make it almost all better.

Loki waits for Sif at the restaurant, wiggling and fidgety. _Stop_ , he orders himself. It almost works, too; just his one foot keeps on bouncing.

He really does try to act like a grown-up when he’s out in public, especially alone like this; he hasn’t quite shaken the whole _you look like a homeless person and an addict and someone is bound to call 9-1-1 if you act like one too_ feeling yet, even though he’s been off the streets quite a while now. In fact, he’s not certain he will ever shake it.

Thor has asked him more than a few times why he cares what people think, especially considering how often (and how adamantly) he insists that he _doesn’t_ care, but it isn’t really about that. It’s about living under the constant threat of being _put away_.

Being stored somewhere… somewhere the nice people don’t have to deal with you, don’t have to look at you. Put in a musty, filthy drawer and forgotten.

It starts with your parents and goes all to hell from there, and even if he is never filed away for one single day ever again it still comes out to having been _swept under the fucking rug_ at least one time too many.

~

“Are you okay?” It’s the first thing Sif asks him, after the obligatory hug that she always manages to somehow make feel deliciously non-obligatory. She wraps her arms around him like she could squish him forever, and all she wants back is a hug of her own. On one hand it’s a tiny thing; on the other, it’s huge, and he loves the fuck out of her for it.

So much so that he sneaks in a second quick squeeze before letting go entirely.

“I guess,” he stalls a little longer as they shed their respective coats and sit down. She scoots her chair closer to the table, all the while making _that face_ , and everything about it tells him she isn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. “Okay, okay,” he surrenders, laughing. “It’s nothing major. We got a letter from Odin, just a perfunctory letter of the 12-step sort,” he adds as she looks a little panicky, “and it threw Thor for a serious loop. Two loops, maybe. Which, of course, makes life rather hellish for me… given that _life is actually all about Loki_.”

“But you’re okay about the letter?” She skips right over his snark and looks worried, which is nice. Without Thor and Steve here things really can _be_ all about Loki, and Loki can’t deny he likes it that way sometimes. Okay, usually. Maybe.

He shrugs. “I don’t really care about it at all, I guess,” he says, because he doesn’t. “Or about him. The whole thing is just part of his process. Good for him for getting help and for sticking to it, you know? But he’s still pretty much dead to me after that last visit,” _as if he wasn’t before. Haha_. Loki shrugs again when she nods in agreement. “I don’t even wish anything bad upon him. That’s not like me, I know,” he adds with a bitter little half-smile, “and I can’t even really explain why it’s true, but I don’t. I- I just don’t give a fuck what happens to him anymore, maybe.”

Sif half-smiles back. She opens her menu and spreads it flat on the table. “That makes sense to me,” she agrees. “He sure hasn’t earned your concern.”

 _All Odin has really earned is a swift kick in the ass, but the old goat isn’t even going to get that anymore_ , Loki thinks. All told he is so over the whole shitshow. “Nah,” he says, opting to let everything go at that. “I suppose he hasn’t.”

They sit quietly for a few minutes, sipping their water and studying their options. “Do you want to get an appetizer now,” Sif finally asks him, “or should we wait for our menfolk? Our _other_ menfolk,” she amends, smiling properly now. “I didn’t meant to imply that you were one of the girls.”

“Yeah, no. You girls can’t get that lucky,” Loki teases. “But yes, let’s get something.” He needs to burn off some of this excess _stressergy_ and eating when he should be waiting politely feels like a perfect way to do it. “Steve won’t care and it’s healthy for Thor to be annoyed – with good reason, I mean - now and again.”

~

“How are you guys doing,” Sif asks once they’ve ordered bruschetta and tea. “This letter business aside, I mean. How are you _really_ doing?”

It’s kind of a weird question, one he doesn’t get asked often. Except, well, in therapy. It’s not one he asks himself, either. Pretty much ever. Consequently, Loki’s quick wits plain old up and desert him, which isn’t one of his favorite feelings. “Um,” he fumbles. “Okay? Good? I’m not sure how to assess it. How should we be?”

Sif laughs. “There isn’t any right or wrong answer, silly,” she tells him. “I just- I worry about you guys sometimes. You both left a lot behind to come here, and I want to be sure none of us takes that for granted.”

 _Oh_. “I’m fine,” he says. “We’re fine,” he clarifies, making an effort to smile brightly. “I like it here.” He’s saved from having to dig deeper by the arrival of some truly magnificent food; perfectly-grilled crusty bread, fragrant olive oil, and a platter piled high with neat heaps of chopped kalamata olives, tomatoes and herbs, two kinds of pesto, and tender brown roasted garlic. “Ohhh,” he groans instead, thanks (okay, mostly) to the fantastic smell. “If I believed in heaven, this would be it.”

“If this was heaven,” Sif points out as she helps herself to a slice of bread, “a lot more people would be working harder at getting in.”

~

On his third bite, something weird happens with gravity and Loki’s generously-loaded slice floats out of his hand. “Mmm,” Thor says from just behind him as Loki squeaks in surprise. “Why, thank you.”

“That’s not yours, you fucker,” Loki hisses, twisting to watch the last bit of it disappear into his brother’s ample pie hole. “Order your own food.”

“Oh, I will,” Thor assures him, chewing quickly and then swallowing. “But you wouldn’t want to be the only one with garlic breath, now, would you?”

With that his brother leans all the way over and crushes their mouths together and _oh my_ it’s so much better than food, even. Loki brings a hand up to touch Thor’s face, moaning softly as his tongue slides deep int-.

“Ahem.”

They jump apart. “Still here,” Sif reminds them. “Dinner, not porn. Nice to see you, Thor.” Stern tone not withstanding, she can’t keep a straight face; Loki wriggles. “Here, please,” she tells his brother, patting the chair next to her, “have a seat.”

Thor does. He’s conveniently sitting directly across from Loki (who promptly slips a foot out of his own boot and way up between his brother’s thighs).

“It’s good to seeeeee! Sorry,” Thor exclaims as his sudden hop jars the table. “My chair is _cold_.” He gives Loki a look that’s equal parts _oh, god, do that again_ and _you are so, so dead._

“Seriously,” Loki teases his brother, “you are such a shitty liar.” He wiggles his toes. Thor’s face is the best shade of pink.

 _Yeah_ , Loki thinks, _I do like it here._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Therapy is a safe place for Loki to melt down.
> 
> Fortunately.
> 
> (aka being Dr. Riley isn't much fun sometimes)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _NOTE: Loki in the middle of a meltdown is very anxious and manipulative. If you tend towards anxiety, reading his mental process may be a little triggering. Sorry!_

"Things seem a little better," Loki reports. "He hasn’t been waking me up every couple of hours the past few nights, and his dreams don't seem..." - he has to stop and hunt for the best word, which always annoys him on the inside even though it makes all his shrinks happy - "so disturbing, I guess." He smiles. "I don't know if they're happening less often, or if he's getting used to the whole business. I suppose," he adds _reasonably_ when she says nothing, "I could ask him."

Dr. Riley just looks at him, waiting. And waiting. "What," he says, finally. When she cocks an eyebrow he rolls his eyes. " _What_ ," he asks again, a little more sharply this time. "I answered the question. I _did_ ," he insists, slapping the chair arm. "What?"

"What _was_ my question," she asks him. Her voice is perfectly neutral but his anxiety level rockets off into the stratosphere anyway.

"You asked me how things were going. How I was doing," he corrects himself, because that's a lot closer to what she'd really said. He thinks. Fuck.

"And what question did you answer?"

Loki tsks. " _That_ one." Duh. Except there's more to this, and he can’t _take_ it; it’s a huge fight to make himself stay in his chair. In the room.

"If you think about it," she says, still so calm it’s infuriating, "about what you actually told me, I mean, you might come away with a different opinion."

"Stop playing fucking games with me," he snaps, and then "Okay, fine. _Fine._ You win."

Dr. Riley frowns. "What are you feeling right now?"

"Fucking annoyed," Loki yells, unable to find so much as a trace of good humor anywhere now. "Okay, and I’m afraid, and _no I don't know the fuck why_."

"Do you know that it's still okay to tell me how _you’re_ doing," she asks, carefully, "even when things are rough for _Thor?_ "

He bites his knuckles in (what hits him - just too late - as an inadvertent) imitation of his brother. It hurts, and not in a good way. "But that's selfish." He's panting.

"I know this is really hard," she assures him. "Do you need a break?"

He does. "No," he lies. "I'm fine."

"Let's go at this differently, then," she suggests, eyeing him a little skeptically. "You mentioned yesterday that you had plans with Sif." He nods, really wondering (when he can fucking think at all) where this is going. "Did you get to see her?"

Loki takes a deep breath and thinks back to the restaurant... to Sif smearing chunky olives and garlic-and-parsley pesto on her bread. "Yeah," he says a little more evenly. He _feels_ a little more even, at least for the moment. "We chatted for a little while and then Thor and Steve joined us for dinner."

"And you had a nice time with her," Dr. Riley acknowledges. "I can see it in your face."

He scrunches up his nose. "She's nice." Even after everything.

"You're right," Dr. Riley says. "She is. And how are things at the shelter?"

"Good," he says. "I was a little worried that - once I had pets of my own - I would lose interest," he confesses a little sadly, because he hates it that he tends to be _like that_. "But it hasn't been that way at all. I think I actually worry _more_ about the rescues now that my two have a nice home."

"And how are things going with the other volunteers?"

He laughs. "I haven't eaten any," he teases, still laughing. "I like most of them. The interns actually look to me for advice; their parents would be horrified." _Parents_. Loki clears his throat. "But it's good. I like it there," he tries to continue nonchalantly, and he might have pulled it off, if it weren’t for how his voice keeps cracking. "I-'I guess I'm jealous that they have parents who would _be_ horrified. _Envious_ , I mean," he corrects, because they’ve been working in DBT on how _jealousy_ and _envy_ aren’t one and the same. He makes himself stop running his mouth. “Fuck,” he huffs. “I’m all over the fucking place.”

“Loki?”

“Yes, mom,” he grumbles, struggling valiantly to catch his mental balance.

“Taking care of Thor on an ongoing basis is going to be something that at best really challenges you,” she says, ignoring his dig. “It’s important not to lose sight of that. This sort of caregiving isn’t going to come naturally, and sometimes you may not have enough strength in reserve to do it.”

“Way to be negative.” He’s not sure what he wants – to fight with her, to be reassured, to sleep for a million years. To have his _actual_ mother here. Or, rather, Frigga. Who can’t be his actual mother and can’t be here. Loki grits his teeth and shakes his head. “What the fuck is wrong with you? With me?” He punches his own thigh this time, rather than the chair, and Dr. Riley subtly tenses.

One more wrong move and she’s going to _call someone_. Nobody wants that. Not even him.

_Just fucking stop_ , he orders himself. _Stop._

After a solid minute of silence so charged it feels like the room is burning, Loki collapses against the chair arm and starts bawling. “I suck,” he chokes out between huge sobs. “I suck and I’m broken and nothing can fucking fix me.” This kind of talk gets him nowhere and is only proving her point, and he knows it, but he can’t stop. He just can’t do it. He _Can’t. Do. Anything._

_Fuck_.

~

“I’m sorry,” he tells her when he’s cried so much he’s out of tears. He’s not (nearly as) sure (as he probably should be) exactly what he’s sorry _for_ , but Loki trusts that at least some part of it has to be for fucking up his treatment or her day or- or something.

He’s not supposed to lie. Not here, of all places.

“Okay, I’m not sure if I am,” he amends. “Sorry, I mean. I feel really shitty and I know I should be sorry but I’m- I’m just not sure.” He looks at her, blinking through the tears. “You probably hate me,” he prompts, and then adds “yeah, yeah, I should probably stop fishing.”

Dr. Riley lets her head drop forward, raking both hands through her short hair. For a moment she looks utterly exhausted. When she glances back up, though, she’s smiling a crooked little smile that Loki knows would not be out of place on his own face. “I don’t hate you,” she assures him, “and I’m not surprised you’re fishing. How do you feel now?”

He stops and thinks about it for a while, blinking and snuffling. “Wet,” he says, and they both laugh quietly. “And drained. And thirsty.” He tries to swallow; it’s noisy and a little painful. He really needs to get some water down. “But I- I feel lighter? I guess needed that.”

“It’s not selfish to take care of yourself,” she says, finally getting a chance to circle back to her original point. “At least, it’s not selfish in a bad way. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we don’t have what it takes to help others. And Loki?”

Loki coughs into his sleeve and looks her in the eye. He’s all squinty and puffy. “Yes?” He doesn’t tack on the “mom” this time; everyone has limits, and he’s too frightened to really push hers.

“You’re doing really well and making a huge amount of progress, and I’m very proud of you.”

“But,” he offers when she hesitates.

“Not _but_ ,” she disagrees. “ _And_. And by the very nature of your illness caretaking is going to take a huge amount of energy. Energy you can’t always spare, spent on skills you won’t always have.”

“So I’m a failure.”

“No, so you need to understand your limits and work within them.”

_Oh._

“What if working within my stupid limits isn’t good enough,” he counters. “What if I simply can’t get the fucking job done, _and Thor needs more than I can manage_ ,” he doesn’t add.

“Then,” she reminds him quietly, her voice so soft he has to really concentrate to hear her, “you lean on your support system and we take care of it with you.”

“You mean _for_ me,” he corrects her.

“No,” she disagrees, still soft but with more force to it, “I mean _with_ you.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stress takes its toll, especially in the absence of effective communication.

“Ahh," Thor roars, out in the living room. Loki, lost deep in his own random thoughts, shrieks a little and drops his spoon in the sink. He stands there quietly with both palms on the messy counter and tries to catch his breath, his own frightened noises lost amidst his brother's clunking and clattering. _Five... four... three... two..._ Loki whirls away from his cooking and pads quickly across the cold kitchen floor.

He comes to a stop with his toes poking just over the threshold. Compared to the other surfaces, the hardwoods always seems a little _warmer_ , somehow. He doesn’t pretend to understand it.

Loki looks around the room. The scene playing itself out in front of him proves too goddamned adorable to be disconcerting. Thor is actually _talking to Mac like he's little orange people_. “-was falling," his brother is explaining, all awkwardly sheepish and sorry. "I didn’t mean to bonk you.”

Mac – smart little guy - is having none of it. Loki isn't sure he's ever seen this particular almost-a-cat looking more offended, which is saying something.

Thor laughs. He's embarrassed and apologetic and _beautiful_. “I’m starting to think it’s a good thing," he goes on, clearly still not aware that Loki's joined them and is leaning quietly against the doorframe, arms akimbo, "that you aren’t going to be getting all that much bigger.”

Cute or not, something in his brother’s behavior isn’t quite right. Things are _off_. Loki knows this is the part where he is supposed to _do something_. Make things better, blah blah blah. “Another nightmare,” he asks Thor softly, making a concerted effort not to further startle either of them. He frowns a little. “Are you okay?”

Thor sighs, long and loud. Loki can see the color rising in his brother’s face.

Interesting.

“It- it wasn’t a nightmare, exactly,” Thor stammers, which only leaves Loki that much less uncertain as to what might _really_ have transpired.

So, this is _his_ fault. _Awesome_. Thor looks beyond pained and Loki braces for the slam that's bound to follow.

“More childhood stuff," his brother continues instead, shifting a little on the sofa cushions and trying to tug discretely at _the family jewels_. "Later; late middle school, I think.” Loki watches, transfixed, as Thor turns even redder. “What are you making in there,” his brother says out of nowhere, jerking his head towards the kitchen.

Ye Olde Topic Change is such a ridiculous ploy that Loki can't help but smile. He can feel himself unwinding a little. Not enough, probably. “Lasagna,” he offers, licking his lips and watching his brother's eyes as they follow the tip of his tongue. The two of them exchange a long look; maybe Thor isn’t going to brush him off after all. Not this time, anyway. It's reassuring, enough so that it gives Loki a solid shot of the kind of confidence he probably doesn't need. Or deserve. “So, what was your not-a-nightmare about," he chances asking. When there’s still no rejection forthcoming, even with all this pushing, he lets himself grin more and more openly. "Was it fun?"

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Thor grumbles, except he looks a whole lot like he actually _does_ want to. Or maybe he’d like to _act it out_ instead. Which, combined with the pretty pink cheeks he’s sporting, can really only mean one thing.

Loki laughs, short and sharp. “Oh,” he teases, except perhaps it’s not teasing because he knows for sure it’s true, “so it has to do with lusting after me.”

“Maybe it was about doing my homework,” his brother sputters.

If Loki grins any more broadly his face may crack in two. “Homework,” he says, with the kind of air quotes that invariably make him want to rip Thor’s hands off. It’s different when _he_ does it. Life, of course, is not fair. “Is that,” he asks, teasing still harder, “what the kids are calling it these days?”

Thor stands abruptly and turns away. He stares out over a whole shitload of nothing behind the sofa. “I _said_ I didn’t want to talk about it.”

_Ouch_. Oh, and _fuck_.

“Suit yourself,” Loki quips, but inside he’s aching. Even a good sense of how far not to push is of little use when you opt to ignore it, and - for sure - he didn’t come equipped with a particularly good one to start with.

He abandons his stupid game and pads silently back out into the kitchen. Thor doesn’t follow.

~

Running the kitchen faucet serves (at least) two purposes: the water helps Loki clean up the mess he’d made earlier, when Thor’s yelling had startled him, and it covers the sound of his tears. Which, yes, are really just another mess he’s made.

~

“How much longer,” his brother calls in from the hallway. Because _the kitchen timer_ is clearly of no use when one is Thor. “Loki?”

Loki takes in a huge lungful of air, which makes his torso bob to the surface – his erection jutting up like a fat, ugly flagpole - and then sighs. He sinks back down through the warm, warm water, dick and all, until his butt hits bottom. “It takes an hour total,” he yells back. Little waves spread out from his body and splash against the sides of the tub. “I’m busy. Check the timer.”

“Busy?” The door opens a couple of inches with a loud squeak, and a small slice of Thor – so backlit it’s unrecognizable – appears in the resultant gap. “Busy doing what?”

“Jacking off,” Loki says, partly to fluster his brother and partly because, well, he is. Was, at least. He hadn’t been going at it with any particular degree of enthusiasm – he’d simply been skimming one oil-slicked hand lightly up and down his dick, over and over, to enjoy the feeling of _being almost there but not arriving any time soon_ \- and even this small amount of talking has definitely cost him both his nominal momentum and the majority of his hard-on.

Which figures.

The water is still toasty warm and relaxing, regardless. He’ll take what he can get.

Thor laughs. “Seriously,” he says, pushing the door open a little wider and blinking against the dimness and the steam. “What are you doing?”

“I was _jacking off_ ,” Loki snaps. “What are you, the bathroom police? Please, Mr. Odinson,” he mocks, “I don’t know _where_ I lost my hall pass, but I have to pee so bad and if you won’t let me go I’ll wet myself right here in the hallway.” When his brother doesn’t laugh, or even groan, Loki huffs. “I’m not hurting myself, Thor,” he says heavily. “Fine. I’ll turn the fucking lights up and you can see for yourself.” He shoots a hand up – fuck _risk of electrocution_ \- and shoves the dimmer all the way up, grimacing as Thor makes pretty much the exact same face in the doorway. “Oil,” he lists off, holding it up. “Hand. Dick. Jacking” – he demonstrates – “off, see? Except it was working a whole lot better before you interrupted.”

Thor starts to say something and doesn’t. He scrubs his face with his hands, pulling his hair back and wrapping one of the elastic ties from his wrist around it. “I’ll go check the timer,” he says at last, pulling the door closed again. “Sorry.”

“Me too,” Loki says, once he’s sure his brother is too far away to hear. “Me. Fucking. Too.”


End file.
